The modal diversion induced by high quality public transport: use of attitudinal variables for travellers’ segmentation

Traffic congestion due to excessive car use and its negative impacts on environment and people health really affects the life quality in metropolitan areas. Among possible transport solutions being recently experienced, high quality public transport systems, particularly metro and light rail, are wished to become a concrete alternative to car use. This paper aims at investigating, for different groups of transit users, the rate of modal diversion, from private motorized to collective transport, induced by the new VAL system, introduced in 2006 in the city of Torino. To this extent, an ad hoc survey has been designed and addressed to metro and surface public transport users. The Exploratory Factor Analysis let recognize two latent constructs on which the K-means Cluster Analysis has been applied, allowing to individuate four different clusters: “thrifty and quality focussed”, “highly quality focussed”, “PT supporters for necessity”, and “thrifty and not quality focussed” riders. The travellers’ segmentation suggests to invest money in improving public transport quality and image through a proper advertising, in order to get the users to like it and making it perceived as smart and cool. In this way, public transport could attract individuals having high profile status and income. In addition, making private transport more uncomfortable and expensive, through the introduction of strong constraints on parking (reducing parking places) and increasing its cost, could induce to divert car lovers who use it both for sake and out of opportunism. Published in the Selected Proceedings of the WCTR 2010.